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July 18, 2005
Top Ten
The BBC's Greatest Philosopher vote has finished, with Marx romping home in first place, and Scotland's own Hume a clear second. The full top ten is:
1. Marx
2. Hume
3. Wittgenstein
4. Nietzsche
5. Plato
6. Kant
7. Aquinas
8. Socrates
9. Aristotle
10. Popper
Nothing too surprising in there, I think. Popper remains immensely popular with scientists, of course, though it would be interesting to see whether he and the other two recent writers - Nietzsche and Wittgenstein - are still on the list in a hundred years time.
Are there any surprising omissions?
Posted by logican at July 18, 2005 04:28 AM
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Via Gillian Russell I see that the results of the BBC’s “Greatest Philosopher” poll are in. The winner — with... [Read More]
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Comments
Russell? I mean, being a British vote and all...
Posted by: Jon ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.logicandlanguage.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 18, 2005 07:36 AM
What about John Stuart Mill or Adam Smith, if the definition of philosophy stretches as far as Marx?
Posted by: Edd at July 19, 2005 02:59 PM
Any omissions? Hmm, I don't know. How about Descartes and Berkeley?
Posted by: Varol Akman at July 20, 2005 02:02 AM
Which is worse, preferring Aquinas to Aristotle or preferring Hank Jr. to Hank Sr.?
Posted by: Clayton at July 20, 2005 12:54 PM
heidegger, foucault, freud? except the last one, I guess its not surprising
Posted by: Magdalene at July 20, 2005 02:16 PM
Descartes does seem a bad omission (not because I'm particularly a Descartes fan, but he certainly seems significant enough to warrant it).
I guess Frege drops out because a lot of people voting won't know who he is, and perhaps this just betrays my own unbringing, but for my money he should have been in there too.
Good to see the Scots getting their representative in there though :)
Posted by: Aidan at July 21, 2005 02:38 PM